A Guide to Corruption (3) Aid to Africa: who's counting?

Is Britain's aid money well spent? One expert working in Ghana raised doubts - and was sacked. Rosie Waterhouse on the whistle-blower and the missing £18m

Howard Horsley is an idealist, committed to overseas aid. Over the years he has worked as a volunteer, a paid teacher and a VSO field officer in Africa. Then, in 1999, at the age of 54 and with a successful career as a headteacher in England behind him, he applied for a job with the Department for International Development (DfID). "I was thrilled by the expansion of the overseas aid programme under the newly elected Labour government and keen to make my expertise available," he recalls.

In May that year he took up a post managing the education field office (EFO) in Ghana, administering a British aid programme worth £50m over five years. He liked Accra, the capital, and made plans for his wife to join him, but within a few weeks he began to notice things at work that he didn't like. As months passed, he grew more and more concerned about what he describes as "lax financial controls, unchecked powers of patronage and the potential for mismanagement and corruption". He reported these concerns to DfID in London in e-mails, memos and telephone conversations. Yet, instead of seeing them investigated, Horsley was summarily sacked and denied a reference.

It was a personal calamity. For the past five years, this former head of a tough Grimsby comprehensive, who has a glowing Ofsted report on his record, has been unable to find work. With the vigorous support of the MP Austin Mitchell, who describes his treatment as "monstrous", Horsley has fought to have his case reviewed and his complaints investigated. Now he has decided to tell his story.

It is a story that raises important questions about DfID's control over aid spending - at a time when the G8 summit has just agreed to double aid to Africa by 2010, and when our government is assuring us that our aid money is not seeping away through corruption and poor management. And, while the government insists it has done nothing wrong, uncertainty remains about its past procedures and about the fate of no less than £18m in aid. More worrying still, it is now clear that Horsley was not the first British aid official in Accra to raise doubts about financial control.

At the time he went to Accra, Britain's policy for distributing aid had shifted from big projects to local programmes administered through the Ghana Education Service, with staff at the British education field office working alongside officials in the Ghanaian education ministry. Horsley soon heard complaints from other aid agencies, and from the Ghanaian minister and his officials, about the way money was spent and contracts awarded without adequate accounting or monitoring by DfID. Incidents included a request to authorise spending of £32,000 on office furniture, when the furniture had already been bought; the failure of DfID to provide the Ghanaian education minister with a full statement of how education aid was being spent, and the potential use of aid as, in Horsley's words, "a means of dispensing personal favours".

The most mysterious incident came after Horsley was told by the Ghanaian deputy education minister in August 1999 that Clare Short, the then secretary of state for international development, had pledged an extra £18m in aid. When none of this money turned up, Horsley made inquiries with the Ghanaian accountant general - who, he says, confirmed in September 1999 that it had been received by the government.

The money, however, did not find its way into the usual education aid channels, so Horsley, alarmed about the fate of such a sum and about the other problems he had found, wrote to London requesting a formal, independent investigation of the conduct of DfID affairs in Ghana.

Soon afterwards, on a working trip to northern Ghana, he caught typhoid and returned to Britain to recuperate. On his recovery he was called to a meeting at DfID headquarters on 6 January 2000. He thought this was to discuss the investigation he had requested and also to complete his midterm performance review, but he arrived to find that it was a disciplinary hearing. It didn't last long. Blamed for a breakdown in communication and a lack of coherence in the presentation of policy, he was sacked with immediate effect.

Horsley strenuously denied the charges and received strong support from international colleagues, but, when he returned to Ghana to assemble evidence for his appeal, he found that his filing cabinets had been emptied and his computer files professionally wiped. DfID then withdrew his formal right of appeal and threatened him with the Official Secrets Act if he spoke out.

Claiming protection as a whistle-blower under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, Horsley sought to have his dismissal investigated first by DfID itself and then at an employment tribunal. The tribunal said it had no jurisdiction because he had not been employed for long enough and had not lodged his Public Interest Disclosure Act claim soon enough. The civil service commissioners brushed him off, too, saying they could not investigate as DfID claimed he was employed on contract, not as a civil servant.

The case has outraged Austin Mitchell, who raised it in the House of Commons and has written to Hilary Benn, the current Secretary of State of International Development, asking for an independent inquiry. Mitchell told the New Statesman: "As a result of his attempt to blow the whistle on financial inadequacies and possible maladministration, this man has been out of a job for nearly six years and that's a monstrous way for DfID to behave. They made Howard a sacrificial victim. He was an embarrassment in raising these concerns. The proper procedure should have been to investigate complaints and tighten up procedures. They didn't do that."

One body that has investigated DfID aid to Ghana is the National Audit Office (NAO), which reported in a letter to Mitchell: "At no point . . . has any evidence emerged to suggest that financial impropriety or mismanagement occurred within DfID." But the letter added that "investigations revealed areas where the department might usefully tighten up its procedures and controls, which they are doing".

As for the mysterious £18m, the audit office initially said that DfID claimed no such amount had been paid to Ghana in 1999. Then, in May 2003, the NAO admitted that £18m had been paid, in 2000, as "budgetary support". It explained: "It follows that for payments of budgetary support it is not possible directly to answer the questions 'What was it for?' or 'How was it spent?', except to say that it added to the resources available to the government of Ghana." This is a remarkable admission: put bluntly, it means that neither DfID nor the NAO could say what became of £18m of British taxpayers' money.

Since that investigation, the NAO has tightened up accounting procedures for aid spending in general and for "budgetary support" in particular. Howard Horsley is entitled to some credit for this, though he has had no thanks for his efforts.

DfID maintains that any weaknesses in its financial procedures have been addressed and that Horsley's dismissal was "wholly related to his performance, which did not meet the requirements of the job". It says: "All parties across Whitehall have been satisfied that DfID acted correctly in relation to Mr Horsley's dismissal and found no evidence of financial impropriety."

Horsley authorised DfID to release documents to the New Statesman to clarify the grounds for dismissal. He says they prove that DfID never carried out the investigation he requested weeks before his dismissal and also that it ignored its own disciplinary procedures in sacking him.

But the story does not end there, for, in the course of his campaign, Horsley discovered he was not alone in raising concerns about aid to Ghana. His predecessor there had raised similar doubts about an "absence of checks and balances". Howard Tyers, who now works at Westminster University, has confirmed to the New Statesman that in his time at the Accra EFO he made "a number of complaints" about payments for an expensive office and also for Land Cruisers of an unnecessarily high specification, purchased without the usual tendering process.

Worryingly, after these complaints Tyers's tenure in Ghana also ended strangely. His contract ended in March 1999, but he asked for a three-month extension because he had to remain resident in Ghana, as his daughter was completing her A-levels. This request was rejected in London, and it was only after an appeal by the Ghanaian education ministry that he was allowed to stay. However, he was sidelined to a research project and denied access to the EFO. And, like Horsley, he found his computer files wiped.

The experiences of Horsley and his predecessor raise questions that should worry anyone who cares about aid. Does DfID respond properly to concerns about financial management? Does it ensure that new aid is spent wisely, with transparency and adequate financial controls? DfID says yes, but unless whistle-blowers are encouraged and protected, how can we be sure?

How does Horsley feel? "Angry that DfID has still held no one accountable for what was going on in Ghana; that no one has been held accountable for my entirely unjustified dismissal; that there has been no hearing, anywhere, on the merits of my case. And appalled that DfID can demand good governance in other countries and still fail to meet the most basic standards of good governance in its own internal practices." He is angry, too, at the waste of years of his career. Despite the emotional and financial costs, he remains determined not to let the matter drop.

Transparency International, which campaigns against corruption in aid and trade, would not comment on the case, but its executive director, Chandrashekhar Krishnan, was clear about one thing: "Any development organisation should have a policy of encouraging whistle-blowers and of ensuring that, if someone has suspicions to report, there is a mechanism to allow that person to express those concerns in a way which will not attract recriminations." The Horsley case does not seem to match that standard and it will deter, not encourage, future whistle-blowers.

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The people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Djibouti, Cameroon, Gabon are demanding democracy, rule of law and jobs from their leaders. Since January protests have rocked North African states of Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya. Similar protests have also taken place in Cameroon and Gabon.

The protesters have embraced jet fighters, helicopter gunships, armoured carrier assaults, water cannons, tear gas and camel charge. Thousands have died and tens of thousands have been injured. We cannot watch quietly while a part of humanity is being brutalised. The people of Libya, Cameroon and Gabon need our support. They need our prayers,and our encouragement. Our silence means victory for the totalitarian regimes. Let's us support them. This is the time and opportunity to make a difference. Raise your voice against injustice, oppression and dictatorship. Let us support them Now!!!. Join and invite your friends to join.

POLITICIANS AND THE ROT IN GHANA'S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Ghana:The Bright Star that Failed to Shine

A protest message to African Leaders

A message to the Thieves & Tyrants in Africa

"But history offers a clear verdict:governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable and more successful than governments that do not.No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers. No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt".PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

HAVE YOU HEARD OF AFRICOM?

WELL, LIKE COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM, AFRICOM IS THE NEW UNITED STATES MILITARY PROJECT THAT SEEKS TO ESTABLISH MILITARY BASES ACROSS AFRICA WITH THE SOLE PURPOSE OF SECURING AFRICA'S RESOURCES FOR THE BENEFIT OF US CONSUMERS.

The Question is : Have Africans fail to appreciate sufficiently the bitter pill they swallowed under colonialism? Have Africans forgotten so soon the human and societal damage wreaked on them by Europeans through centuries of slavery, genocide, economic exploitation, cultural manipulation and political domination? Lord A. Adusei

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African money stolen so far

Africa has lost $140 billion through corruption in the decades since independence, says Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo. The huge sum, largely spirited away by leaders and their associates, was one of the main reasons why Africa’s poverty was so severe.

Other names mentioned by the French Weekly were President Henri Bedie of Ivory Coast, 2 billion FF (or $300 million); President Denis N'guesso of Congo, 1.2 billion FF (or $200 million); President Omar Bongo of Gabon, 0.5 billion FF (or $ $80 million); President Paul Biya of Cameroon, 450 million FF (or $70 million); President Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, 200 million FF (or $30 million); and President Hissene Habre of Chad,20 million FF (or $3 million). Bear in mind that this list does not reflect the actual amount of money stolen out of Africa by these dictators. Factually, the mentioned figures had changed significantly since the French Weekly article was published in 1997. There are now new African billionaires and millionaires, including indicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor, President Gabassinga Eyadema of Togo, former Liberian Warlord Alhaji Kromah, former Ghanaian dictator Jerry J. Rawlings, and the late President Samuel Doe of Liberia; a host of African government ministers would make an updated list. While returning funds stolen out of Africa is the right thing to do, efforts must be made by the West and responsible African governments {i.e. the government of Botswana, etc.} to alter international banking laws that will make it difficult for Africa's government officials and corrupt business personalities to transfer huge funds into western banks. The measure was first proposed following the September 11, 2001 attacks but was rebuffed by western financial institutions. Again, we need to revisit this issue: the terrorists could use the thieves in Africa's government Ministries to transfer money into western bank accounts—the money could be used at a later time for terrorists' activities.

(Paul Japheth Sunwabe) Paul Japheth Sunwabe (a native of Liberia) is a graduate student of World Politics at The Catholic University of America. He is also the co-founder and President of Freedom and International Justice, a Washington DC based inclusive political organization seeking democracy, social justice and economic reforms in Africa. For this and subsequent articles, please visit www.freedomjusticef54.org/articles/

A major shift in funding development in Africa is accelerating. Major donors have been urging African governments to eradicate corruption or face cuts in aid. (African Recovery, by Sam Chege)

Despite the country’s abundant natural resources, including copper, gold and diamonds, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to sink further into poverty. Meanwhile, Mobutu, the late president who died in 1997, amassed a personal fortune of $5 billion, which was deposited in Swiss banks. (CNN world news, September 7, 1997). After more than three years of legal wrangling, the Nigerian government has finally achieved a major breakthrough in it’s efforts to recoup a substantial amount of money looted by the former president, General Sani Abacha. The money was stored in Swiss bank accounts. Abacha, who died of an apparent heart attack in 1998, had been accused of stealing nearly $3 billion from state funds in a series of staggering revelations of how he and his immediate family personalized Nigeria’s treasury. (This DAY, May 30, 2002)

An excellent way to get rich quick is to be the ex-wife of an ex-president. This is what Mrs. Vera Chiluba is claiming from ex president Chiluba in her application to Ndola High Court: She wants US$2.5 billion in a lump sum, and claims she can prove he has the funds available. She also requires maintenance for their nine children, none of whom are in gainful employment. She also needs a share in 6 properties in Ndola and a commercial farm in Chi samba. Also she needs a new executive Mercedes Benz 500 (or 600), a new Land Cruiser, a new Nissan Patrol, drivers as well and a court order for the return of 400 cattle, sheep and goats which are still at State Lodge.This was taken from the Zambia Post and was also reported in The Zambia Society Newsletter compiled by the glamorous Maggie Currie. Are African presidents the only ones so clever in accumulating wealth so quickly? Even ex president Marcos of the Philippines didn’t get hold of such huge amounts in such a short time. (Elias Georgopoullos, Saturday, April 27, 2002 at 12:52:22 PDT)

The French journal, ‘L’Evenement du jeudi published an article stating that the president of Cameroon, Paul Biya, is worth more than $45 billion FCA, money gleaned from the sales of petroleum. Mr. Biya has not refuted these claims.(Post watch Fact File report by Ntemfac Ofeae, undated).

The late president Mobutu of the Democratic Republic of Congo holds the record for financial plunder and national ruin. It is estimated that he stole $4 billion, leaving the country poorer than he found it, with ruined infrastructure and no formal economy to speak of. A close second to Mobutu is the late dictator of Nigeria, Sani Abacha, whose rule left 70 percent of Nigeria’s 120 million people living on less than one dollar per day. In Kenya, the Daniel Arap Moi dictatorship must be given credit for the systematic destruction of what used to be Africa’s economic showcase from the 1960s through the 70s. The authoritative Africa Confidential put Moi’s external bank holdings at $3 billion. In the so-called Goldenberg scandal, the Moi regime bolted with an estimated $1 biliion from its own central bank (12 percent of the national’s GDP), setting off a spiral of inflation, economic stagnation, unemployment, crime, ruined agricultural sector and decaying public services. (Testimony on the social and political costs of the theft of public funds by African Dictators: US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services by Michael Chege, University of Florida, May 9, 2002)

Recent surveys carried out by the World Bank in a series of developing countries to compare budget allocations to actual spending at the facility level have confirmed that resources are not allocated according to underlying budget decision. In Uganda and Tanzania, large parts of funds were diverted elsewhere or for private gain. (U4 Utstein Anti corruption resource website) Peter Machungwa, Home Affairs Minister, Godden Mandandi, Works and supply Minister were arrested on Tuesday night in connection with the disappearance of $2 billion in government funds.(Business Day, October 24, 2002) Paul Tembo, former deputy minister of Finance, was shot dead in his home hours before testifying in corruption trial of three cabinet ministers. (BBC News, July 9, 2001). Zambian police and politicians have been identified to be the worst corrupt elements in the country. (AllAfrica.com, March 1, 2001)

Other names mentioned by the French Weekly were President Henri Bedie of Ivory Coast, 2 billion FF (or 300 million); President Denis N'guesso of Congo, 1.2 billion FF (or 200 million); President Omar Bongo of Gabon, 0.5 billion FF (or $ $80 million); President Paul Biya of Cameroon, 450 million FF (or $70 million); President Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, 200 million FF (or $30 million); and President Hissene Habre of Chad, 20 million FF (or $3 million). Bear in mind that this list does not reflect the actual amount of money stolen out of Africa by these dictators. Factually, the mentioned figures had changed significantly since the French Weekly article was published in 1997. There are now new African billionaires and millionaires, including indicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor, President Gabassinga Eyadema of Togo, former Liberian Warlord Alhaji Kromah, former Ghanaian dictator Jerry J. Rawlings, and the late President Samuel Doe of Liberia; a host of African government ministers would make an updated list. While returning funds stolen out of Africa is the right thing to do, efforts must be made by the West and responsible African governments {i.e. the government of Botswana, etc.} to alter international banking laws that will make it difficult for Africa's government officials and corrupt business personalities to transfer huge funds into western banks. The measure was first proposed following the September 11, 2001 attacks but was rebuffed by western financial institutions. Again, we need to revisit this issue: the terrorists could use the thieves in Africa's government Ministries to transfer money into western bank accounts—the money could be used at a later time for terrorists' activities

Arap Moi's Loots

The Kroll report revealed an intricate network of companies that were used to transfer billions of shillings to foreign countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Brunei among other countries using shell companies and dummy trusts registered in safe havens. The report also revealed the individuals and wealthy families who were behind the siphoning of enormous amounts of money out of the country and the banks that were involved. The Kroll report described in detail the assets owned by various politically connected families and individuals in a total of 28 countries across the world including hotels and residences in South Africa and the United States, a 10 000 ha ranch in Australia,3 hotels in London, a 4million pound house in Surrey and a 2million pound penthouse flat in Knightsbridge

Mother Ghana

I love Ghana, my mother land. Ghana is my only home. I must protect its people, its culture, its peace, its economy and its democracy and our children's children so that future generations will live to enjoy every aspect of the country.

Yes there are many tribes, languages, dialects and cultures but we are all Ghanaians. There is no tribe but Ghana. There is no political party but Ghana. Peace and unity is what we need to build the country. Politicians and political parties will come and go but Ghana will remain. So if we build it well today, our children will live to bless us. Together we stand divided we fall.